1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a message service for a mobile communication terminal, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for generating and playing an animated message, in which handwritten information entered by a user on a touch screen or an image captured by a camera may be animated.
2. Description of the Related Art
The capabilities of mobile terminals have been significantly enhanced by developments in technologies such as wired/wireless communication technology, multimedia technology, power charging technology, and in manufacturing technology for hardware, such as Central Processing Units (CPUs) and memories. For example, while the early mobile terminals send information to another terminal using voice calls, improved mobile terminals, which are capable of exchanging text messages, may send simple information using Short Message Service (SMS) messages, which include simple text information, when voice calls are unavailable or undesirable.
SMS has evolved into Long Message Service (LMS), which is capable of including long-text information, and Multimedia Message Service (MMS), which is capable of including multimedia files, such as images and videos. Unlike SMS and LMS, which only send text information, user demand for MMS has dramatically increased because of its scalability of expression.
The current MMS only sends stored images. Therefore, when a user wants to send handwritten information using MMS, a sender (or a sending terminal) must convert the handwritten information into an image file using a separate application, store the image file, and then send the stored image file. The handwritten information is converted into a single still image, showing only the handwritten results without reflecting the input sequence of the information for the handwriting.
Therefore, when MMS having the image file with the handwritten information is received at a recipient, the image is viewed as a single still image. The reception of a still image makes it impossible to sequentially express the order in which the sender created the handwritten information, and causes difficulty in delivering handwriting action information or emotional state information of the sender.